Economic Democratisation - Swasthika Arulingamhttp://economicdemocratisation.org/?q=authors/swasthika-arulingam
enWhen international agendas trump the people’s demand for reform, no one winshttp://economicdemocratisation.org/?q=content/when-international-agendas-trump-people%E2%80%99s-demand-reform-no-one-wins
<div class="field field-name-field-commentaryimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://economicdemocratisation.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/ArulingamKadirgamar.jpg?itok=cJoEhXQ6" width="480" height="354" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/?q=authors/ahilan-kadirgamar" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ahilan Kadirgamar</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/?q=authors/swasthika-arulingam" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Swasthika Arulingam</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>The heavy international focus on prosecutions for war-time human rights abuses in Sri Lanka is a reductive view, often shutting down discussion as opinions become divisive. On the one hand, calls for prosecution come with the demand to have international judges, to ensure a credible process that addresses the deterioration of the criminal justice system. On the other hand, prosecution is often said to betray “war heroes” and international participation to undermine sovereignty. Even as post-war communities strive to come to terms with the aftermath of war while struggling against neoliberal development policies imposed on them, solutions proposed by international heavyweights frequently override the concerns of the affected people. </p>
<p>Following regime change in 2015, Sri Lanka is moving on major reforms this year. The government claims it is addressing the aspirations of its citizens, including the most war-affected people, through a constitutional political solution, a robust transitional justice process and far-reaching economic development. Yet, the lived realities and the struggles of the people may well contradict the work of the experts putting forward these reforms. </p>
<p>The northern and eastern regions, repressed for decades by war and post-war militarization, saw a plurality of democratic voices emerge early this year, as people gathered in large numbers to the District Secretariats to present their ideas for the new constitution. They articulated issues rarely discussed in the media, such as caste, gender, customary law and innovative institutional structures, through the lens of everyday life and events. What will become of these submissions, however, remains in question. </p>
<p>Since the end of the war in 2009, the government under former president Mahinda Rajapaksa held several consultations and inquiries into various aspects of war, truth and compensation. Though these processes were heavily criticized for falling short of credible procedures, affected persons gathered in the thousands to express their concerns. For instance, most people who came before the Presidential Commission to Investigate into Complaints Regarding Missing Persons, sought truth and the whereabouts of their family members. Their tears of loss could not be separated from their stories of day-to-day struggle for income and stability. For the families of the disappeared, socio-economic challenges and finding their missing go hand in hand.</p>
<p>However, government officials and many of the mobilizing organizations often direct the families to choose between economic assistance and finding the truth. For example, during hearings, the Presidential Commission would interrupt with questions about livelihood assistance while the testifier struggled to remember specific details of an incident relating to a disappearance many years back. Questions such as: “Do you want a death certificate?” and “Have you received compensation?” often led to angry, tearful retorts from the families of the disappeared. On the other hand, families of the disappeared have been forced to boycott Commission sittings and instead participate in demonstrations. On one such protest, placards read “We ask for our relatives, you give us goats and chicken”. Some families of the missing had to evade the organizers of that protest in order to testify before the Commission. </p>
<p>This forced compartmentalisation of truth and socio-economic concerns is also present in the transitional justice discourse in Sri Lanka today, which claims to consist of the four pillars of truth, justice, reparation and non-recurrence. But in practise, its predominant thrust has been to prioritize war crime prosecutions—heavily influenced by international actors—at the cost of addressing continuing economic inequalities and exploitation. The newly launched Consultation Task Force on Transitional Justice has the formidable challenge of prioritizing the concerns of the war-affected people and neutralizing the powerful agendas of international human rights experts and political organizations. </p>
<p>Even as the new government promises to improve on human rights, it is also pushing for economic reforms that will further dispossess the people.Even as the new government promises to improve on human rights and create an inclusive constitution, it is also pushing for economic reforms that will further dispossess the people. While parts of the country’s Sinhala dominated South have a history of resisting neoliberal economic policies, the Tamil-dominated North has seen the emergence of major protests this year. An Asian Development Bank project under assessment to supply desalinated water to Jaffna Town, from the Vadamaratchy East coast, met with one of the most well-mobilized protests in the post-war North. Protestors felt the project could undermine the fishing livelihoods of the local community. In a USAID-subsidized MAS Holdings factory, the largest apparel plant in the North, garment workers went on an unprecedented spontaneous strike against harsh labour conditions. These protests are signs of the new democratic assertions in the war-torn regions, but they also reflect the contradictions between the aspirations of the people and the policies of the government.</p>
<p>Today in Sri Lanka, processes of reform are overwhelmingly influenced by international knowledge industries in transitional justice and comparative constitutional making. Indeed, with the new dispensation towards reform, there has been a proliferation of international workshops targeting Sri Lankan opinion makers in NGOs and the government. These international discourses and many of the local experts are either oblivious to or seek to override people’s voices. But how long can human rights experts ignore the repeated socio-economic concerns that citizens are raising in the consultative processes? Furthermore, these experts are often silent about mega development policies, which exclude rather than reconcile the war-torn communities. </p>
<p>The recent controversy over the 65,000 prefabricated steel houses proposed by the Government for the war-affected regions is case in point. Placing the interest of a multinational company Arcelor Mittal—which is looking for a dumping ground for its steel products—over the legitimate housing needs of the people would be an inerasable blot on any reconciliation efforts by the Government. Local activists are openly opposing this contracted project, worth an estimated one billion US dollars. They are demanding community-driven housing construction with local labour and resources that can build community resilience. However, many other actors who otherwise tout good governance, human rights and transitional justice have said little in public about this ill-conceived project. </p>
<p>The international agendas of transitional justice and liberal constitutionalism can move dangerously close to neoliberal dispossession when socio-economic grievances are ignored. In this context, the long-suffering people engage at every opportunity they get, through vibrant protests, silent demonstrations, and even government mechanisms. And it is the increasingly audible democratic voices of the people throughout the country, and the new solidarities they form, that can correct the course of the constitutional and transitional justice processes.</p>
<p><em>This piece was published on</em> openDemocracy <em>on <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/openglobalrights/ahilan-kadirgamar-swasthika-arulingam/when-international-agendas-trump-people-s-dem" target="_blank">01 Apr 2016.</a></em></p>
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</div> <!-- /.easy_social_box -->Thu, 31 Mar 2016 18:30:00 +0000econdemo245 at http://economicdemocratisation.orghttp://economicdemocratisation.org/?q=content/when-international-agendas-trump-people%E2%80%99s-demand-reform-no-one-wins#commentsTrapped at the Katunayake Free Trade Zonehttp://economicdemocratisation.org/?q=content/trapped-katunayake-free-trade-zone
<div class="field field-name-field-commentaryimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://economicdemocratisation.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/unnamed.jpg?itok=I5Wvg17B" width="400" height="297" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/?q=authors/buddhima-padmasiri" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Buddhima Padmasiri</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/?q=authors/swasthika-arulingam" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Swasthika Arulingam</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>The opening scene of ‘Modern Times’, a satirical comedy written and directed by Charlie Chaplin, portrays a line manufacturing process during the Great Depression in England.</p>
<p>Chaplin, a factory worker, is bolting screws and loses track of his work as he takes a few minutes off to scratch his hand. He fights with his supervisor and chases a fly that lands on his nose. The scene gives a sense of the oppressive factory environment where every activity of the worker is measured in relation to productivity.</p>
<p>While the film may have depicted the working environment in a factory almost seven decades ago, recent visits to the Free Trade Zone (FTZ) in Katunayake by members of the Collective for Economic Democratisation in Sri Lanka revealed that the working conditions of the factories where hundreds of young women and men are employed is no different.</p>
<p>“I take a water bottle to work and keep it beside me. But I notice in the evening that the bottle remains full, untouched. I would not have had the time,” said a worker who has spent nearly a decade in Katunayake.</p>
<p>The FTZ were introduced to Sri Lanka in 1978, following the guidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank soon after the liberalization of its economy in 1977. Also known as Export Processing Zones (EPZ), the FTZs at the time of their introduction drew rural youth, mainly women, to assembly-line work. Ideas of modernity, urbanisation, a fixed salary and the promise of a better life seemed attractive to thousands of youth who had few options in their respective hometowns.</p>
<p>In addition to creating jobs, economic liberalization brought along demands of a capitalist market economy, targeted at maximizing profit and minimizing cost. This meant that workers were given daily targets in production, very limited break time and other myriad regulations that dictated their work and activities within the factory.</p>
<p>The EPZ creates precarious working conditions. Precarious as the workers are not protected with the rights of permanent workers and subject to problematic employment relationships. According to the Ministry of Labour, in 2012 there were 126,366 persons employed in the EPZs and from that the largest EPZ in Katunayake had employed 39,535 workers, about 31.3 per cent of the total number of EPZ workers.</p>
<p><strong>Working conditions</strong></p>
<p>Given that a considerable workforce is employed in the sector, why are working conditions not given due importance? According to a worker employed at one of the FTZ factories, there are around 500 employees in one section and around 1000 in another. In each of these sections there is one canteen for the workers to use. During their 30-minute lunch break, workers sometimes wait for up to 15 minutes in the queue. Workers at the end of the queue have barely a few minutes, just enough time to hurriedly gulp down some food.</p>
<p>Recent instances of food poisoning have become a serious concern among workers. On September 4, around 500 workers employed at the NEXT factory took ill after a reported incident of food poisoning. As many as 85 workers were admitted to a hospital in Negmbo. Two had to receive treatment at the ICU.</p>
<p>One of the workers died two days after the incident. The management brushed aside her death attributing it to “her own illness”, something the family continues to dispute. According to a Board of Investment (BOI) official, the report issued by the Medical Research Institute (MRI) following the investigation of the deceased worker, confirms that the food which was offered to the workers was not suitable for consumption. This year alone there were three reported incidents of food poisoning in the Katunayake FTZ, two of which were at the NEXT factory. The lack of hygiene in the kitchens where the food is prepared was brought to the notice of the management several times, but it was not taken seriously, a worker said.</p>
<p>Work is strenuous, with workers spending eight hours a day, five days a week plus 5 ½ hours on Saturdays in the factory. Even though her legs hurt every night, a worker said she chose to stand and work as it fetches an additional Rs. 1,000. Sanitation facilities are inadequate, workers said, pointing to double standards in maintenance of their restrooms and the supervisors’ restrooms.</p>
<p><strong>Accommodation</strong></p>
<p>Most of the workers live in cramped hostels that are built like prison camps. They evoke images of one of the housing lines in the estates, except they are two-storied. They cook, sleep and live in that space. Even this accommodation is not affordable fo many of the workers, who pay a third of their salary as rent. Electricity charges are to be paid at commercial rates.</p>
<p>Despite such financial pressure, workers joined the FTZs as their options are so few. Each worker has a compelling story. A worker, barely 17, said she joined the FTZ to support her old grandmother. Her brother was training to be a priest, she said. An older worker said she had been living in one such room for the last 19 years of her life and also that this is the only life she knows of.</p>
<p><strong>Indebtedness</strong></p>
<p>Indebtedness emerged as a running theme among the FTZ workers. The workers are provided breakfast and lunch on weekdays by the factories for which a deduction is made from their monthly salary. They pay out of their pockets for the dinner and on many days they end up eating on credit as they do not have enough money with them. Further, they buy essentials on credit from the shops in the FTZ where the owners maintain a book for its debtors. Every month on pay day the workers go to their creditors and close the accounts, fearing they would be at their hostels demanding immediate payment.</p>
<p>During one of our visits to the FTZ, workers spoke of an incident of a worker committing suicide. He had left a letter and mentioned that he owed a small shop keeper in the area Rs. 5,300. The fact a seemingly payable amount pushed him to the extreme step showed the intensity of the financial pressure many of the workers are subjected to.</p>
<p><strong>A precarious urban sector</strong></p>
<p>Most of the workers we talked to came from farming families and have to an extent been involved in farming. They have come to the FTZ as there were no jobs for them in their villages and agriculture was no more a sustainable livelihood option.</p>
<p>One worker who came from Ratnapura had been involved in the gem-mining industry. He said that with the introduction of machinery to mining, the work they did for five years is now done by the machines in two days’ time. This had made his labour redundant and he had joined the FTZ for employment. One young man who was in to vegetable farming said in order to obtain a yield of 50 kg of potatoes they have to invest around Rs. 40,000 on cultivation. Yet he sees this as a gamble, and if they do not find the market for their harvest, which is an issue at present, then in his own words “the investment goes down the drain”.</p>
<p>Even if they explore other avenues briefly, many of the older workers said they eventually end up returning to the FTZ. A worker who had worked in the FTZ went to the Middle-East as a domestic worker. On her return, she joined the FTZ again and has now been working there for eight years straight. It is only after exhausting other options that the workers resign to being employed in the FTZ.</p>
<p>In the Budget Speech for 2015, the President claims the garment industry has shown 15 per cent growth and is expected to generate US$5 billion in export earnings this year. He has announced new tax concessions for textile companies, but for the workers there is hardly a few hundred rupees increase to a minimum of Rs. 10,000 if their wages are less than that, an additional 2 per cent of employer’s contribution to their EPF and a vague, often repeated promise of a pension plan.</p>
<p>All this is a reflection of the crisis of the state, the economy and our society. Such a large number of our youth have no place in their villages and the rural economy and their life in the urban garment factories is a return to the tragic portrayal of life in Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times. Should this not concern us? Will their situation be considered in the upcoming elections?</p>
<p><em>This article also appeared in Sunday Times on <a href="http://www.sundaytimes.lk/141130/business-times/trapped-at-the-katunayake-free-trade-zone-129478.html" target="_blank">30 Nov 2014</a></em></p>
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